


Bring it on Home to Me

by StarMaamMke



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-14 09:32:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14133258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarMaamMke/pseuds/StarMaamMke
Summary: A fight, a confession, a journey home.





	1. I Only Hurt Myself

“Can you at least call me when you get to your stepmom’s?” Jim Hopper asked, raking a hand through his thinning blonde hair as he shot his stoic girlfriend a sheepish glance. Joyce shrugged as she zipped the slightly overstuffed suitcase on her bed.

 

“I’ll call the house.”

 

“Christ sake.”

 

Joyce’s shoulders went rigid and Jim thought she might turn around to shoot some sort of stinging remark in his face, but a moment later, she sighed, grabbed the handle of the suitcase, and turned. There was no discernable flicker of emotion in her tired, brown eyes, and her mouth was pressed into a tight, thin line. 

 

“Can you let me through? Jonathan has to get me to the train station.”

 

Jim stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, only to have them immediately shrugged off as she sidestepped him. “Hey, easy! Joyce, I really, really don’t want you to leave for two weeks without us resolving this.”

 

The thought of her leaving, just as furious as she had been the night before, made his stomach churn and go sour. He reached for her free hand, and nearly recoiled at how cold she was to the touch. Joyce had always ran a little cooler than anyone Jim had ever met, but it seemed more pronounced with this new and sudden space between the two of them. He wanted to rub the small, chilled hand between his large, warm ones, but he was certain the odds of him earning a slap for the gesture were high. His heart skipped a beat when he felt her hand twitch in his grasp, as though she were fighting the urge to squeeze and succumb. 

 

“You said ‘thank God’.” Joyce’s tone was sad, and softer than a whisper. 

 

“I--”

 

“You told me we didn’t have to get married now, since it was a false alarm.”

 

“I was there, Joyce, you don’t have to remind me.”

 

Joyce shrugged, her shining eyes fixed on the carpet as she pressed her lips together. Jim noted a slight tremble in her stubborn chin, and he desperately wanted to pull her into his arms and physically keep her from running off to Florida, to tell her that he’d only reacted that way because… well, he didn’t know why. When she had told him that she was late and the test had come out positive, he immediately went into ‘do the right thing’ mode. He fussed over her, proposed, and started looking into a bigger house, all the while feeling positively suffocated with terror. 

 

Another goddamn kid, and he wasn’t exactly a spring chicken. His real worry was Joyce - she was a year younger than him, but still in her forties. Not exactly an ideal time to have kids, and not when her previous pregnancy had been such a dangerous one. He remembered his mom telling him about it, way back when Diane was pregnant with Sara. He remembered thinking how grateful he was that Diane was made of stronger stuff, and that it wasn’t them dealing with extended hospital visits. What a fucking prick he had been. 

 

So yes, when Joyce came back from the doctor’s office with news that the test had been a false positive, he may have been a little too gleeful, a little too eager to accept that Joyce had only said yes to his proposal because she, too, was thinking about their expanding family and his superior health insurance. So he gave her an out, but hoped she wouldn’t take it. It had not gone over well. 

 

She gently tugged her hand from his grasp, her thin shoulders slumped in defeat, her eyes obscured by her bangs as she kept them cast downward. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

 

“Joyce, please; I didn’t know if you wanted to get married because of the kid or…” he trailed off as her head snapped up, her eyes burning into his. 

 

“Two weeks. Make sure the boys don’t burn the house down.”

 

_________________

 

Sure enough, two days later, the phone rang. Jim’s ears perked at the sound, and he fought the urge the make a beeline towards it, his mind’s eye conjuring Joyce’s small, pale features as he last saw them; all stormy-eyed and severe. She had been adamant about the two weeks, and he owed her that. Will answered the phone, greeting his mother with an earnest sweetness that made him sound younger than his years. 

 

“Do you want to talk to the Chief? He’s here tonight… yeah, I guess there’s a prowler and he wanted to make… Oh.” Will turned to Jonathan, who was reading a paperback whilst sprawled on the couch. “She said she only has enough time to say ‘hi’ to you and Eleven real quick.”

 

Jim finished his beer and lumbered heavily towards the front door, where he would enjoy two more beers and three cigarettes in a row. 

 

___________________

 

“It’s for you.”

 

Jim turned away from the stir-fry he was painstakingly trying to prepare in time for dinner, dabbing his forehead with a washcloth before frowning at Jonathan who was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, extending the phone towards him. 

“Station?”

 

“Mom.”

 

Jim turned the dial on the burner and fairly leapt towards Jonathan to take the phone from his hands. It had been a torturously long four days, not knowing where he stood with Joyce, but keeping house for her and sleeping in her bed, where the scent of her hair still clung to the pillows. 

 

“He-ey,” he drawled, his forefinger gently stroking the back of the phone as though it were the pale column of her throat. 

 

“Hi…” She said something else, but it was so hushed and rushed that Jim only caught the word ‘you’. He pressed for clarification.

 

“I miss you.”

 

His stomach flipped and tears sprung to his eyes at the confession. He cleared his throat and chuckled nervously. “Aww, Horowitz, you old softie.” His voice cracked despite his teasing tone. He missed her so badly that it tore at his insides and tightened his throat.

 

Jim could hear what sounded suspiciously like a sniffle on Joyce’s end of the line. “I know when I left we weren’t on good terms but I… I want this to work. Us, you know?”

 

“I know, I want this to work too. I love you.”

 

The silence on the other end that followed Joyce’s soft gasp stretched onward towards a good half a minute before Jim said her name. If it weren’t for the gentle-but-ragged breathing on the other end, he would have worried that she’d hung up on him.  

 

“I just realized you’ve never said that to me before. Not when we were kids, not even when you proposed.” Her tone was thin and brittle - as if an ill wind would snap it in two. 

 

Jim sniffed and rubbed at the corner of one eye with the back of his hand. His lips trembled into a faint smile. “It's only because I'm an idiot.”

 

“I love you too, you know.”

 

Jim clutched the phone so hard his knuckles went white. “Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Well why don't you blow off the old lady and prove it? She was always terrible to you anyway.”

 

“No she wasn't.”

 

“Fair point.”

 

“Look Hop, it doesn't matter if you didn't mean it when you proposed. I know we grew up in a time where that's just what you did if you knocked up a girl but… but could we revisit the moving in thing? I liked that.”

 

He made a mental list of the best jewellers in a 60 mile radius, his attention fading from the rest of their conversation. The first time around had been in the heat of the moment, a reaction to the not-baby; he had snatched the cigar ring that had been resting in the porch ashtray and slid it on the third finger of her left hand. A cigar ring. He’d do better this time. 

 

“Hop?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I can’t wait to come home. It’s too hot here.”

 

“Well, it’s Florida, darlin’.”

 

“My hair looks awful here. If we retire to a warmer place, it has to be a dry heat.”

 

She wanted to retire with him. She wanted to live with him and retire with him. This was promising, very promising. 

 

“California it is.”

 

He barked with laughter at the unenthusiastic noise that emanated from her throat, sounding for all the world like a cranky cat that didn’t want to be touched. 

 

“We’ll figure it out, Horowitz.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

A day after Joyce was set to embark home on the train, every news station was stuck on what was being hailed as the worst railway accident in history. Jim watched in disbelief as aerial footage of a collapsed bridge played over and over again. He could see the police vehicles and ambulances at the embankment, as smoke and twisted metal. His numb brain processed something about divers, and a search for survivors. His mind raced as the name of the liner repeated over and over in his brain.

 

It was her train.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Bring Your Sweet Loving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The grief rollercoaster.

“One Chief to another, what’s the situation? Yes, I know I’m not in your jurisdiction, but it’s my fucking girlfriend, you dumb fuck! Oh yeah? Well how about this?” Jim Hopper slammed the phone down on the receiver, adding a few more choice cuss words as he did so.

“God damn it!” He he shouted, picking up the phone once more. Jane, Will and Jonathan were all spending time with the Wheeler family, and he was praying that they weren’t watching the news that that very moment.

“Chiefo?” Sam Owens voice was on the other line, faint and questioning.

“Hey, I know you’re not my fairy godfather, Sam. We’ve been over this a million times, but here’s the thing…”

The call to Sam seemed to do the trick. It wasn’t but a half hour after that Jim hung up with him, that the phone rang once more.

“This is Chief Bartlett. We spoke briefly earlier this morning about the situation with the bridge collapsing. I am so sorry, if I knew who you were I would never–”

“Yes, I’m a big deal, it’s no problem, guy. What’s going on with the rescue mission?”

The phone fell from nerveless fingers several minutes later.

Jim was vaguely aware that his knees were shaking, and well on their way to buckling, but he was distracted by the roar of blood in his ear, and by the way his throat and chest seemed to constrict just as his heart had found a new and intense rhythm.

Survivors are unlikely at this point. Survivors are unlikely at this point. Surv-

Someone was screaming, loud and primal. Jim didn’t even realize it was him until he tasted the tang of blood in throat, felt the increasing rawness therein. He was on his knees, his hands tearing at his hair and if there had been any witnesses, they might have remarked on his resemblance to a wild, hunted, wounded animal.  

Call the Wheelers. Call her stepmother. Call the Wheelers. Call her stepmother. Call the funeral home… wait, what?

Call the Wheelers. Ted answered the phone, his tone as unpleasantly sonorous and oblivious as ever.

“Karen took the kids to the city, actually. Something about her and Joyce hitting it big at bingo the last time they went to the casino, and wanting to get everyone some new clothes.”

Despite the news that dangled precipitously over Jim’s head, he found himself laughing at the statement. “Sounds like a blast. Joyce ended up having to use most of that for her trip.”

Ted groaned. “Her old tightwad of a stepmother didn’t pay for the trip? There’d better be something good in the will for her when all is said and done.”

Jim snorted, a smile breaking across his face. “You know Joyce better than that, she didn’t ask that old woman for a dime. Rachel tried to pay for the whole thing, airfare included. Told Joyce that trains were rickety death traps…” Then he remembered door, have them come straight home, Ted, okay? It’s very important that you remember this. Write it down if you have to.”

“Is everything okay, Jim?”

“The very second, Ted. I have to go.”

He barely made it to the toilet in time, before the dry toast and coffee from earlier that morning made another appearance, retching over and over again until all he tasted was the acidic bite of bile. There were things he still had to do. Call her stepmother, call the funeral home, write the obituary? Was he remembering that right?

Anyway, it was too much. He sat with his back against the wall and his knees to his chest as he slowly rocked from side-to-side, trying to think about the next steps.

Call her stepmother, call the funeral home, write the obituary, pick out her dress…

If they could even find her body. Jesus, did she even want to be laid out in a coffin like that, with a line of mourners staring down at her, judging her dress and her hair and the way the mortician-

“Ugh, it’s so ghoulish.” Jim jerked his head up as he recalled her words. They had gone to the funeral of an old classmate together. Neither of them had really run in the same crowd as Eleanor Gillespie, but their graduating class had been small, and Eleanor had stayed in Hawkins the same as them, so there was the whole matter of loyalty.

“What do you mean?” He had asked, throwing an arm over her shoulder as they sat towards the back of the church. Joyce had pulled him into the back pews, halting their progression towards the front of the church, where mourners were lined up to pay their last respects.

“Just queuing up like you have a nickel at the circus. You know half of them just want to see how the mortician made her look like she just happens to be sleeping in full makeup. I hate it. My mom begged to be cremated but Dad just had to ignore her one last time. Light me on fire and keep me in an old cigar box for all I care, just don’t lay me out like the main attraction in a freak show.”

“That’s dark.”

“It’s a funeral, I’m allowed to be dark.”

Call her stepmother, call the funeral home - cremation - wait, no, they still didn’t have a body. Call her stepmother, keep on that podunk police officer, write her obituary…

Goddamn him for letting her leave angry. They had reconciled, yes, but the last time he saw her, she pulled away from his touch, and screamed at him. If he knew it was going to be the last time he saw her he might have… might have.

Maybe a nap before the kids got home. Maybe he’d dream about her and she’d be smiling and happy and in love. Or maybe she’d be mangled and broken, standing next to a bald an emaciated Sara. Maybe there eyes would be haunted and accusing, fearful of the black hole that waited for them on the other side of the door… probably he was never going to sleep again. He would never sleep again and he would never see her again.

What was that stupid poem that was supposed to be comforting? The one about slipping into the next room? Jim couldn’t remember, but he shook with rage as he recalled the glib little passages meant to assuage the pain and fill the gaping wound in his chest. What did it matter if it was just a room, when he wasn’t allowed to walk into as well? Gone was gone and fuck the people who tried to soften that fact. Life was random and cruel and he would never, ever see Joyce again. She was in the black hole with Sara.

“Rachel, it’s Jim.”

“James, hello! Is my daughter back yet?”

“Trains take a while, Rachel.” Why couldn’t he just get to the point? He heard her make the patented Rachel Horowitz Thinks You’re Simple growl in the back of her throat.

“Yes, James, they do, which is why… ugh, nevermind. I’m such an idiot. I didn’t say a thing, not a thing.”

Rachel had always been a bit on the bizarre side, so Jim ignored her odd little ramble and steeled himself.

“Did you catch the news?”

“What? Oh no, James, that show is too dark for me. I haven’t watched it since those Kennedy boys were murdered.”

“Uh-huh. Well, there was a fairly serious derailment and–“

“You see? You can tell Joyce that I’m always right. Those things are death traps and the dining cars are atrocious, but listen, my car just pulled up and I can’t miss this appointment.”

“Rachel–”

“Byeee.”

She hung up on him, and he felt relieved. He wasn’t ready to give the news, not yet. He dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans and choked out a sob when he felt the small velvet box in this left pocket.

“Hey, we’re home!” Will’s voice announced from the porch. “We’ve got too many bags, can you open the door?”

No. No I can’t. Stay ignorant of this forever, kids. You all live on the porch now.

Jim’s body pulled a mutiny on his mind and he found himself heading for the door with a long, heavy tread. He rubbed his face with both hands before opening the door.

“Surprise! Rachel twisted my arm and made me fly home. She paid for first class of all the stupid damn things, and–“

She could’ve been holding bags filled with fine china for all Jim cared - in a split second she was scooped up in his arms, the bags falling from her grasp.

“Joyce,” Jim choked out, his voice thick with tears and pent up sobs.

“Hopper, what’s–”

His mouth covered hers in a desperate, hungry kiss. He ignored the noises of disgust their respective children as he dragged Joyce into the house and kicked the door shut,  his lips never leaving hers. Her hair felt coarse and thick under his palm, the skin on her lower back was smooth and warm and ALIVE.

“Hopper, the kids!” Joyce protested as she finally managed to part her lips from his. He pressed his forehead against hers, and stroked her cheek as his tears fell freely. “Hop?”

“I’m sorry, sorry, sorry…’ he sighed, raining fresh kisses in her cheeks and forehead.

“Didn’t we have a talk about this?”

“Marry me.”


End file.
